


Neckties and Champagne

by Midvelvet1263



Series: Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary [1]
Category: Music RPF, The Beatles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Female Paul McCartney, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5981893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midvelvet1263/pseuds/Midvelvet1263
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary McCartney is the one female Beatle. Naturally, the position comes with some problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neckties and Champagne

**Author's Note:**

> this is really cheesy and i wrote this up in like two days  
> but i’ll probably expand more on this if people like it? i think the idea of exploring ramifications from gender and sex changes in general is interesting.  
> also, fem!paul’s name is mary because paul’s named after his father, so i figured fem!paul should be named after her mother.

They ask her a lot of things at the press conferences. Mostly the same ones in different wording, over and over until they’re an incessant hum.

“What’s it like to be the only girl?”

“Is it hard to keep up sometimes?”

“Which of them would you rather date?”

“How do you feel about being the envy of every girl here in America?”

In response, she does the same thing over and over again until it’s become as part of the routine as performing in the concerts: she smiles as sweetly as she can—maybe with gritted teeth—and bats her eyelashes a little, laughs a bit, talks nicely and noncommittally enough to stave off having to actually answer until the next one. And the next one. And the next…

Once, there’s a surprise and a reporter pipes up to ask for her thoughts on the women’s rights movement and mentions this popular book, something called _The Feminine Mystique_ by an author whose name keeps slipping her mind. It takes a moment for her to blink once, or twice, and then skip around the actual answer again—of course, she’s all for women’s rights and liberation, but she’s never really thought about it seriously while being so busy and all, and she’s never read that book but it does sound interesting. It’s the safe answer, as Brian says, and he’s right.

That doesn’t mean things aren’t ever different. On the stage, before the lights and the crowds, everything is different because she feels the _same_ as them, as John and George and Ringo, alive and swept up in the thrill with the music pulsing in her ears and burning in her throat. There’s nothing but the song and the strumming of the strings against her fingers, and her heart pounds in an erratic thrum with it. And often, she’ll catch John’s eye, and he’ll catch hers, and she knows he feels it too.

It’s when they’re off the stage that she’s back on the ground, not just literally, and she sees what’s stayed the same while she was up there.

She learns to get used to it. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been expecting this in some way before, when all of the fame was a dream far enough to look tantalizingly close and she’d known what she wanted to be. But that doesn’t change the gnaw of annoyance, like an itch that can’t be scratched away, that seems to always be there when they’re out in public and the world is free to scrutinize them as it sees fit.

It was one thing for a boy at school to tell her she ought to put down the guitar, as she held it the wrong way, because she was good but not _that_ good and she should know why she wasn’t. It was another for strangers, on the television or in person or directly to her face, to marvel at that one girl Beatle—Mary McCartney, wasn’t it—and how she was surprisingly good, holding her own with three men, and how _does_ she do it?

How does she do it, indeed.

It’s worse when the press swoops in on them, and it’s a mob of jostling and hounding and lots of questions over each other. Sometimes John or sometimes George takes hold of her arm and practically pulls her behind him whenever this happens, other times they, along with Ringo, keep a lot closer than normal next to her as if they’re afraid she’ll somehow be swept away and lost like a man out to sea. It feels a little sillier with George, because he’s younger than her but he still acts protective, and with John, she sort of wishes his grip wasn’t so crushing on her arm, even though she appreciates the gesture (probably more than she’d like to admit).

It probably doesn’t help that she essentially wears the same clothing as them for concerts, even though women can now wear pants in public without too much of a shock. The differences still stick, though—no tie like the others’, for one thing, because wearing what looks like a suit already is pushing enough. She remembers this idea came up earlier, that she’d wear different clothes as a way of being the “star” and the band would probably be called “Mary and the something-or-others”, and it was admittedly not _all_ unappealing.

But it’s not what she’d thought of with John, and it had been his band to start with, and they had already gotten through that kind of naming convention with “Johnny and the Moondogs”. It’s the Beatles and she’s one of them, and that’s all it should be.

There’s always the gossip that follows them, in the rumor rags that speculate about her yanking the rest of the band around in true _femme fatale_ fashion and in others claiming she got in by sleeping with someone. Then there are the crowds of girls who scream and cry at the concerts, and maybe at least some of them also scream for her like they do for the others, but she doesn’t bother to dwell on it too much because they're there and that's what matters.

What she really tries to focus on is the music above all, the obvious thing, even if she is also conscious of public image enough for John to tease her about it sometimes. But he doesn't complain whenever she fixes his tie for him before a show, at least, and she can’t help thinking that of course _he_ wouldn't care as much when there isn’t the same kind of risk for talk and controversy with men like him, and George, and Ringo, as there is for a woman who hangs around men all the time and talks like them, walks like them, dresses and plays and sings the same songs as them. She can’t even sleep in the same room as them, because of all the _talk_.

(But sometimes, she does slip into the bed of whoever’s also sleeping alone at night, to lie down next to him, if only when her mind’s still stuck in the day and she needs to hear breathing that’s not her own for something to fall asleep to. It doesn’t feel awkward unless someone else comes across them in the morning and she realizes what it looks like from the outside.)

Most of the time, it’s only beneath the surface until it jumps out of seemingly nowhere to remind her of its presence. At yet another publicity event, this one a high society cocktail party with a lot of rich snobs whose names she can never fully keep track of and journalists seeking scoops, her face feels about ready to crack from the constant polite smiling. She’s in an unflatteringly frilly black dress pulled off of the rack at the last minute, and her hair keeps falling loose from where it should be tied back, but everyone there tells her how lovely she looks anyway and she soaks up the praise, regardless of how genuine or not it is, as she chatters and jokes away. Her current subjects are some socialites and reporters.

A particularly primped woman, an older one with rings on her fingers and a distinct smell of perfume strong enough to knock out insects, lets out a laugh reminiscent of a witch’s cackle at something witty in her story. “My, you’re worse in person than I expected!” she titters. “And far prettier. Those suits you wear don’t fit a girl like you at all, dear.”

“Well, ma’am, I wouldn’t say they fit the rest that much either,” she replies brightly.

The lady laughs again, turning away as her friends start flitting off to join another group, and a thin, pale reporter chooses that moment to butt in.

“Mary McCartney! Would it be alright if I ask a few questions?” He’s clutching a notepad, pencil in hand, and behind him a photographer is fiddling with his camera. She flashes a smile.

“You asked me one just now,” she answers cheerfully, and he grins nervously before he introduces himself—Tim something-or-other from a something-or-other newspaper, she doesn’t really catch it over all the hubbub—and goes into his questions.

It’s mostly standard fare, about what the Beatles plan on making next, any new singles, how they’re enjoying the states. She answers easily, glancing around occasionally for the others in the stuffy and crowded room as she does. She only sees Brian, talking to a group of suits in the corner with ease, but no one else.

Her throat’s already burning when she pauses to reach out for another flute of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. She sips at it, and it tastes too dry and tart for comfort, but she starts drinking anyway.

“Oh, and,” the reporter finally says, a little breathless and his scribbling in his notepad paused, “just one more question, if you don’t mind?”

“No, no, I don’t mind,” she replies absentmindedly, trying to suck down as much of the champagne as she can without slopping it all over herself. She’s doing pretty well, considering it’s all she’s had to drink in the past two hours. “Go on.”

He grins again, but something about it is less awkward this time. It reminds her of the expression of someone ready to share some private joke. “Just between you and me,” he continues, and his voice lowers, “which of the Beatles would you say is the best in bed?”

Naturally, her response is to choke on the last of the champagne. She starts coughing hard enough to hack up a lung, the burning in her throat even sharper, and she clutches at her mouth with her hand. The reporter looks alarmed before she immediately straightens up, some of the champagne now on her skirt, as she hastily wipes her lips with the back of her hand.

“I’m—I’m sorry?” she gasps out, still not completely sure of what she’d heard.

Now his expression is slightly abashed. “I asked—well, a bit of a joke, really,” he laughs too awkwardly, and she stares at him, “which Beatle you—”

 _In bed_. She’d definitely heard that, there was no mistaking it. She forces her tightest smile, pressing down the urge to scream as best as she could. “It was nice talking to you, Tim,” she replies quickly through clenched teeth, squeezing the stem of the flute, “but I really have to go—the loo—the _bathroom_ , y’know. G’day.”

She spins on her heel and scurries off, ignoring his calls as she pushes herself through the throng and shoves the empty flute off onto another waiter. Her head is pounding, the room starting to whirl around her, and her throat feels drier than ever and the champagne stain on her dress is the size of a tiny island country and _where are they?_ She doesn’t really have any clue of where she’s even going, she just wants to be out for a few minutes, get her thoughts together, or at least that’s what she thinks until she collides with something. Or someone.

 _“Ow_ —Mary!” John gives a start, squints, and then he grins easily, looking almost relieved. “You alright? I was lookin’ for you earlier, couldn’t find anyone in this hellhole.”

She smiles back, maybe a little shakily. “Oh, y’know, the usual,” she answers lightly, head still feeling like it’s spinning. “Talk, shake hands, look nice, the whole routine—food’s not great, though. Especially not the champagne.”

“Tell me about it,” John scoffs, hands delving in his pockets. “Tastes like fucking cat piss, but it’s all there is. When d’you think this’ll be over?”

“When they all get too drunk to stand each other, I bet,” she deadpans. “It’s only been two hours, John—”

 _“Only_ two hours?” John looks at her in disbelief. “It’s a miracle we got through one! It’s a goddamned meat parade, Macca.”

An uneasy laugh comes out of her at that. “Well—we’ll have to try, won’t we?” she manages, and when John scowls, she sighs and takes hold of his shoulder. “John, it’s just publicity, you know that—”

“And I know I’ll go out of my bleeding _mind_ if I have to shake hands with one more rich old tosser one more time!” John reaches up to massage his temples with one hand. “Where’re George and Ringo, anyway? They got away without us?”

“Lucky bastards if they did,” she mutters, looking around. The room is too packed and shifting with people for her to clearly make out more than a few faces at a time, but she cranes her neck a few times and—oh.

“Never mind,” she amends, “they’re with Brian, looks like he’s introducing them to—”

“More twats with money? Sounds fun.” John pauses, his eyes scrunching up, and it’s in a heartbeat or two before he grins with a distinctly far from innocent glint in said eyes.

She raises her eyebrows. “John—?”

“No, hold on, Mary, I’ve got an idea.” He turns to her and something in her stomach flips, almost an instinctive reaction by now, at the look on his face. “C’mon—”

_“John—”_

He doesn’t wait for an answer, he only grabs her hand and yanks her with him into what amounts to a run through the crowd. She nearly trips over her own shoes before she forces herself into a pace closer to him because he’s blind as a bat and she can’t trust him to lead her the entire way when they’re both almost completely drunk as well.

They slow down when they reach the lift, tripping over themselves and snickering like children as they stumble their way in, then step out when the lift gets to their floor and they head back to the rooms. John fumbles with the key when he gets it into the lock and twists it to pull the door open. Once they’re inside, he makes his way towards the closet—stumbling over some fallen shirts on the floor—before reaching to grope for the door handle.

“Are we—are we hiding in _there?”_ she manages, and she giggles again like a drunk idiot, high on the dry champagne and brief thrill of getting away and John Lennon.

“Why _not_ hide in there, that’s the real question, Mary,” he retorts, and he grabs the handle and falls inside the second the door’s opened. He’s scrambling under the rack, hanging jackets and shirts brushing over his head and dropped clothes rumpling under him, as she gives another incoherent snicker and moves in behind him. It’s a bit of a tight fit, their backs against the walls opposite each other and their legs tangling. She reaches to close the door, but with the way they’re crammed inside, she can only manage to close it just against their knees so that it’s left open a crack.

They’re both breathing heavily, close enough for her to smell the alcohol and cigarette smoke on his breath. In the light that spills through the crack of the door, she can see every detail of his face as if it’s illuminated, magnified—the loose strands of auburn hair nearly brushing into his eyes, the little lines of his skin, the crook of his mouth. A little more faintly, the light’s also enough to show all the wrinkles and creases in his suit, the looseness of his now-undone tie.

“Your tie’s undone,” she whispers, if only because that’s the first thing that comes to mind.

John blinks and looks down. “So it is,” he replies lightly. “Gonna do something about it?”

She smiles. “Maybe.”

 _“Maybe?”_ he repeats, in a mock-shocked tone. “So you mean you might not? Is my tie not important to you anymore, woman?”

“We’re not exactly where it is important,” she replies nonchalantly, “unless the old codgers start holding their parties like this.”

“Or maybe it’ll be the reporters.” John leans back against the wall. “They’ll hide in the closets, maybe take some clothes, sell off the ones with our hairs on ‘em—”

He draws up his knees and they press against hers, into the stain on the skirt. It’s still damp, as she realizes when John looks down.

“You had a spill or something?” he asks.

“Not that much, it’s not big,” she answers, but looking at the champagne stain again is enough for a nasty jolt back to the damned reporter.

_Which of the Beatles would you say is the best in bed?_

She makes a strangled noise, remembering his expression (as if they were in on some kind of stupid joke together, as if he’d actually expected her to answer) and John stares at her. It’s a painfully long second.

“Mary?” His voice sounds a little softer.

“What?” She says the word, but it feels as disconnected as if she’s only hearing herself say it.

“Is—” He pauses, a catch on his voice. “Did something happen?”

She looks up, and all the joking from earlier seems to have fallen away, his expression serious. Almost probing. Almost as if he’s ready to be angry for her.

Normally, with anyone else who’d say something along the lines of that, she’d ask why they were asking. But it’s different with John. He can tell with her, and she can tell with him. There isn’t much hiding when it comes to them, and there’s no use in trying to change that now.

She sighs. “I—a reporter just...asked me something—something stupid.”

“Nothing new there, then. What was it this time?” John watches her expectantly. She pulls absentmindedly at a strand of her hair.

“He asked—” Thinking of the question now, with John staring at her so intently, while in a closet with him in a hotel room to scare George and Ringo—something about all three things combined is bizarrely funny enough for a choked little laugh to bubble up in her chest.

But she keeps it down to continue, because John’s waiting. “He asked me,” she goes on, as straight-faced as she possibly can, “which of the Beatles was the best in bed.”

The words take about a second to sink in. John stares at her, and she stares back.

“Really?” He looks torn between laughing disbelief and anger and something else she can’t quite discern.

“Yes, and I didn’t answer,” she deadpans.

There’s another second, and John cracks up. “Oh, _hell_ —and the wanker actually thought you’d _answer?_ C’mon, what the fuck was he expecting? Was he taking the piss?”

Her face heats up. “How would I know?! He just—he fucking _sprung_ that on me out of nowhere when he was asking serious questions about—about the band before, so I left! Said I had to use the loo—”

“Y’think that’ll end up in his shitty article?” John shakes his head, still laughing. He starts to mimic a television reporter’s voice, taking on an awful American accent. _“‘In the interview with Beatle Mary McCartney, she unfortunately declined to answer a vital question about shagging her bandmates. This is truly one of our_ gravest _mysteries, our detectives are on the case, find out more at eleven—”_

“John, _really!”_ She swats at his arm, but she’s laughing too and they’re making too much noise for people who’re supposed to be hiding. When they finally come to a stop, she looks up at him and he feels closer than normal, his breath warm on her face, his hand brushing hers when he starts to shift his position against the wall. Something under her skin heats up, a little uncomfortable but not entirely unwelcome.

There’s silence for a few moments, in the half-lit darkness with their thoughts now away from the brightness of the party. It doesn’t feel as awkward as it probably should be, though—if anything, it feels calm, comfortable, and she savors the quiet.

At least until John breaks it. “Want me to go find the twat and give him a nice punch up the bracket? I’ll only be a minute.”

He sounds casual about it, but not so much that he’s joking, and she knows one word from her would be enough for him to actually go out and do it and send all of Brian’s work in arranging their appearance at this event down the drain.

She exhales and shakes her head. “I appreciate the thought, John,” she deadpans, “but you know it’s not worth it.”

“It’d be worth it if it stopped the arsehole from going further in piss poor journalism,” John counters.

“Tabloids, you mean.” She leans her head back against the cool wall. “It doesn’t matter, he’s just another sad git in the business. I don’t care, really, I don’t. Let’s just leave it, alright?”

“If you’re sure.” He doesn’t sound convinced, but he doesn’t say anything else, and she breathes deeply, in and out again.

It was just a stupid question, she thought, a poor attempt at a joke for a juicy answer or getting a rise out of her. A lot of the messes about her and her place with the Beatles—the gossip, the reporters’ questions and attentions, the talk about her gender, nothing that’d be there if it weren’t for her gender—were inevitable. It came with this kind of life, didn’t it? Putting themselves out there for the world to judge as it saw fit.

And if that judgment came gendered, too, she thought, why should that one addition stop her from continuing to do what she already did?

“I’ll still be for it if you ever change your mind, though,” John adds nonchalantly, in the same tone from earlier when he first offered, and she doesn’t know whether to groan or smile.

“I’m sure you will,” she replies wryly. There’s another pause before she goes on. “It’s daft and all, but you know this hasn't been the first time. I don’t think I give a damn about it anymore.”

She knows she doesn’t have to specify what she means. He doesn’t have to have it spelled out for him, because he sees it, and so does George, and so does Ringo, and basically everyone associated with them. It’s almost but not quite an elephant in the room, obviously present and sometimes addressed but never truly in its entirety—not by them, anyway.

John doesn’t take his eyes off of her, not for a second. “Really?” he asks again.

“Yes, really.” She brushes back a lock of dark hair, over her shoulder, and she thinks she saw his eyes catch on that, but she can’t be sure if they did because the moment went as quickly as it came. “At the end of the day, nothing’s changed, has it? All that talk—all that shit, and yes, John, that fucking question—doesn’t change that. It’s still you, and me, and George, and Ringo. We’ve got the world at our feet. Remember? The toppermost—”

“—Of the poppermost,” John finishes for her, and the corner of his mouth twitches up as he does. “Yeah.”

His eyes still haven’t left hers, and she doesn’t think she minds that all too much. But the feeling’s uncomfortably close to something else she really doesn’t need to think of right now, something in the form of a prickle that flares up under her skin and gets into her chest, so she lowers her head and her hands, for lack of anything better to do, reach for the undone tie.

“Still untied,” she mutters in a tone of mock-disapproval with a click of her tongue, and he raises his eyebrows, but tilts his head back anyway as she does the tie back up for him. Her fingers twist a bit too much in the material of the black necktie, fumbling clumsily to make the right knot, and he’s practically breathing in her ear by now. The air in the closet feels warmer, too; they’ve clearly been in here for far too long.

“—That wasn’t too bad, he could’ve taken longer—”

“It took forever! And where _are_ they, anyway?”

“Hiding in here to try and scare us again, maybe? Or they sneaked out—”

She’s still staring down at the tie when the closet door is yanked abruptly open, the light flooding back in with George standing over them, jacket draped over his arm. They both look up, although John doesn’t even look abashed.

“Hello there,” he greets rather offhandedly, with a little wave.

“Hiding in here?” George looks torn between laughing and looking unimpressed. Behind him, Ringo looks unsurprised.

“No, no,” she replies as seriously as she can, keeping a straight face as she makes a gesture with John’s tie. “Just tying neckties. In here. Really serious business, George, I’m sure you understand.”

“At least it wasn’t under the bed this time,” Ringo comments dryly.

“Oh, y’know—tying neckties under a bed gets too obvious after the first time,” she answers lightly, but she lets go of the tie anyway and gets to her feet. John pushes himself up after her, and of course, the party’s not the end of it—there’s something about a lounge a few blocks away that one of the guests has invited them to, someone Brian’s gotten into contact with, another few hours of PR squeezed in. But heading back through the hall, down towards where the limousine's waiting at the back door, she can’t help stealing glances at John as they trail slightly behind. He’s looking ahead at nothing, sometimes squinting.

Impulsively, she finds herself stopping. “Er—John?”

He looks at her and stops, too. “What?”

Before she can hold herself back, she leans forward and kisses him gently on the cheek. It’s nothing much, really, a spur of the moment thing, but something in her stomach flips when she pulls back and sees John’s expression.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, although she’s not exactly sure about what she’s thanking him for.

Without another word, she turns away and sets off at a brisk hurry after the others towards the door. It takes all her willpower not to look back at John as he follows, to see if his eyes are still on her, but something in her—maybe the same uncomfortably close something that prickles under her skin—knows that they are.


End file.
